Aquaman is splashing into theaters today!

The Ray Team, December 21, 2018

Directed by James Wan and starring Jason Momoa, Aquaman promises to be an action-packed adventure! Visually set in a breathtaking underwater world, the movie tells the origins of the DC Comics icon of the self-titled name.

We were so excited when ILM gave us the directive to narrate one epic time-lapse shot which consisted of a full CG underwater reconstruction of Atlantis, a city with over 15 000 buildings!

The massive layout of the metropolis consisted of hundreds of different building assets, so we strategically built a procedural system where a series of controllers in Houdini would trigger dynamically and create stop-motion animations in Clarisse. This process allowed us to work concurrently on the assets, layout and animation, with everything updating effectively!

Shaders and lighting were also animated within this system; a building under construction would have unfinished constructed material and a work light as it was being built, only to reveal finished material and lighting once completed. This clever system among other things gave us the flexibility to completely change the scale of the city with a very fast turnaround time!

Aquaman has already made a giant splash since its release overseas. Staring today audiences in North America will finally have the chance to watch it in theaters!